1.
Baker Bowl
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Baker Bowl is the best-known popular name of a baseball park that formerly stood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Its formal name, painted on its wall, was National League Park. It was also known as Philadelphia Park or Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds / Park. It was on a city block bounded by N. Broad St. W. Huntingdon St. N. 15th St. and W. Lehigh Avenue, the ballpark was initially built in 1887. It was constructed by Phillies owners AJ Reach and John Rogers, the ballpark cost $80,000 and had a capacity of 12,500. At that time the media praised it as state-of-the-art, in that dead-ball era, the outfield was enclosed by a relatively low wall all around. Center field was close, with the railroad tracks running behind it. Later, the tracks were lowered and the field was extended over top of them, bleachers were built in left field, and over time various extensions were added to the originally low right field wall, resulting in the famous 60-foot fence. The ballparks second incarnation opened in 1895 and it was notable for having the first cantilevered upper deck in a sports stadium, and was the first ballpark to use steel and brick for the majority of its construction. By comparison, the Green Monster at Fenway Park is 37 feet high and 310 feet away, the Baker wall was a rather difficult task to surmount. The wall was an amalgam of different materials and it was originally a relatively normal-height masonry structure. When it became clear that it was too soft a home run touch, the barrier was extended upward using more masonry, wood, and a metal pipe-and-wire screen. The masonry in the part of the wall was extremely rough. The clubhouse was located above and behind the field wall. No batter ever hit a ball over the clubhouse, but Rogers Hornsby once hit a ball through a window, the ballpark, shoehorned as it was into the Philadelphia city grid, acquired a number of nicknames over the years. Baker Bowl is the name, and is nearly always referred to by that name in histories of the Phillies. The prosaic Philadelphia Baseball Grounds or Philadelphia Baseball Park was the often used by sportswriters prior to the Baker era

2.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland

3.
Harry Wright
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William Henry Harry Wright was an English-born American professional baseball player, manager, and developer. He assembled, managed, and played center field for baseballs first fully professional team and it was there where he is credited with introducing innovations such as backing up infield plays from the outfield and shifting defensive alignments based on hitters tendencies. For his contributions as a manager and developer of the game, Wright was also the first to make baseball into a business by paying his players up to seven times the pay of the average working man. Born in Sheffield, England, he was the eldest of five children of professional cricketer Samuel Wright and his wife, Annie Tone Wright. His family emigrated to the U. S. when he was three years old, and his father found work as a bowler, coach, and groundskeeper at the St Georges Cricket Club in New York. Harry dropped out of school at age 14 to work for a jewelry manufacturer, both Harry and George, twelve years younger, assisted their father, effectively apprenticing as cricket club pros. Harry played against the first English cricket team to tour overseas in 1859, both brothers played baseball for some of the leading clubs during the amateur era of the National Association of Base Ball Players. Harry was already twenty-two when the baseball fraternity convened for the first time in 1857 and he did not play in a game with the Knickerbockers until July 8,1858, playing the outfield against Excelsior of Brooklyn. The Knickerbockers lost the game, 31–13, in 1863, the Knickerbocker club all but withdrew from official competition, and Wright joined Gotham of New York, primarily playing shortstop. Here, he joined his brother George, who had become a member of the team the previous year, during the winter of 1864/65, the Wrights played the curious game of ice base ball. Wright left New York on March 8,1865, bound for Cincinnati, by now, Wright was 31, probably past his athletic prime. Cincinnati fielded a regional club in 1867. With Wright working as the pitcher, and still a superior player at that level. For 1868 he added four players from the East and one from the crosstown Buckeye club, the easterners, at least, must have been compensated by club members if not by the club. When the NABBP permitted professionalism for 1869, Harry augmented his 1868 imports with five new men, no one but Harry Wright himself remained from 1867, one local man and one other westerner joined seven easterners on the famous First Nine. The most important of the new men was brother George, probably the best player in the game for a few years, George at shortstop remained a cornerstone of Harrys teams for ten seasons. The Red Stockings toured the continent undefeated in 1869 and may have been the strongest team in 1870, as it turned out, the Association also passed from the scene. In 1869 Wright became the first to make mention of the Seventh-inning stretch in a game he watched

4.
Tim Keefe
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Timothy John Tim Keefe, nicknamed Smiling Tim and Sir Timothy, was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. He was one of the most dominating pitchers of the 19th century and he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964. Keefes career spanned much of baseballs formative stages and his first season was the last in which pitchers threw from 45 feet, so for most of his career he pitched from 50 feet. His final season was the first season in which pitchers hurled from the distance of 60 feet,6 inches. Keefe was born on January 1,1857 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and his father Patrick was an Irish immigrant. When Tim Keefe was a child, Patrick served in the Union Army during the American Civil War, Patrick was a prisoner of war for several years. All four of Patricks brothers were killed in the war, Tim had been named two of them. Tims brother became a major and fought in the Spanish–American War, after the war, Patrick had high expectations for his son, and the two frequently fought over Tims pursuit of baseball. With the help of former pitcher Tommy Bond, Keefe persisted. Keefes early professional career included minor league stints in Lewiston, Clinton, New Bedford, Utica, Keefe entered the major leagues in 1880 with the Troy Trojans. He immediately established himself as a pitcher, posting an astounding 0.86 ERA in 105 innings pitched. Despite the sterling ERA, he managed but a 6–6 record, pitching in 12 games, on July 4 of that year, Keefe pitched both ends of a doubleheader against Columbus, winning the first game with a one-hitter, the second a two-hit gem. He went 41–27 over 619 innings pitched with a 2.41 ERA and 361 strikeouts and his 1884 campaign was almost as dominant, winning 37 games, losing 17, and striking out 334. Day, who owned the Metropolitans and the New York Giants of the National League, moved Keefe and Mutrie to the Giants. Here, Keefe joined future Hall of Famers Buck Ewing, Monte Ward, Roger Connor, Mickey Welch, Keefe went 32–13 with a 1.58 ERA and 227 strikeouts. In 1887, Keefe sat out several weeks of the season after he struck a batter in the head with a pitch and he had arguably his greatest season in 1888, when he led the league with a 35–12 record,1.74 ERA and 335 strikeouts. He won 19 consecutive games that season, a record that stood for 24 years, the Giants played the St. Louis Browns of the American Association in a postseason series for the Dauvray Cup, and Keefe added four more wins to his tally. Keefe even designed the famous all-black funeral uniforms the Giants wore that season, Keefe was very well-paid for his career, yet he was a leading member of the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players, an early players union that fought for the welfare of players

5.
Ed Delahanty
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Edward James Delahanty, nicknamed Big Ed, was a Major League Baseball player from 1888 to 1903 for the Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Infants and Washington Senators. He was known as one of the early power hitters. Delahanty won a title, batted over.400 three times, and has the fifth-highest batting average in MLB history. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945 and he died falling into Niagara Falls or the Niagara River after being kicked off of a train while intoxicated. His biographer argues that, Baseball for Irish kids was a shortcut to the American dream and to self-indulgent glory, by the mid-1880s these young Irish men dominated the sport and popularized a style of play that was termed heady, daring, and spontaneous. Personified the flamboyant, exciting spectator-favorite, the Casey-at-the-bat, Irish slugger, the handsome masculine athlete who is expected to live as large as he played. Four of Delahantys brothers, Frank, Jim, Joe and Tom, a Cleveland, Ohio native nicknamed Big Ed, Delahanty was an outfielder and powerful right-handed batter in the 1890s. Crazy Schmit, who pitched for the Giants and Orioles, said of him, When you pitch to Delahanty, you just want to shut your eyes, say a prayer, the Lord only knows whatll happen after that. He attended Clevelands Central High School and went on to college at St. Josephs, Delahanty signed on to first play professional baseball with Mansfield of the Ohio State League in 1887. Delahanty also played minor league ball in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1887, the Wheeling team sold Delahanty to the Philadelphia Phillies for $1,900. He became the most prominent member of the largest group of siblings ever to play in the leagues, brothers Frank, Jim, Joe. The Phillies obtained Delahanty as a replacement for Charlie Ferguson, Ferguson was a pitcher who had converted to second base for his final season, but he died early in 1888 from typhoid fever. Delahanty was brought in to fill in for him at second base and he began his career on May 22,1888, with the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League, playing 74 games that season with a.228 average,1 HR, and 31 RBI. The next year, in 56 games, he raised his average to.293, in 1890, he jumped to the Players League, but returned to the Phillies the next year when that league folded. He hit.306 and tallied 6 HR and 91 RBI in 1892 and that same year, Delahanty was the victim behind one of The Most Shameful Home Runs of All Time, according to authors Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo. When Delahantys Phillies hosted the Chicago White Stockings at Philadelphias Huntingdon Street Grounds in July, the ball hit a pole and landed right in the doghouse, a little-known feature of the park that was used to store numbers for the manually run scoreboard. Delahanty tried reaching over the doghouse and then tried crawling down into it and he got stuck, and by the time teammate Sam Thompson had freed Delahanty from the area, Anson had crossed home plate. Delahanty blossomed in 1893 with.368,19 HR and 146 RBI and he narrowly missed the Triple Crown, as teammates Billy Hamilton and Sam Thompson led the league in batting with.380 and.370 averages respectively

6.
Sam Thompson
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Samuel Luther Big Sam Thompson was an American professional baseball player from 1884 to 1898 and with a brief comeback in 1906. At 6 feet,2 inches, the Indiana native was one of the players of his day and was known for his prominent handlebar mustache. He played as a fielder in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Wolverines, Philadelphia Phillies. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974, Thompson had a.331 career batting average and was one of the most prolific run producers in baseball history. His career run batted in to games played ratio of.923 remains the highest in league history. In 1895, Thompson averaged 1.44 RBIs per game, Thompson still holds the major league record for most RBIs in a single month with 61 in August 1894 while playing for the Phillies. Manager Bill Watkins in 1922 called Thompson the greatest natural hitter of all time, defensively, Thompson was known to have one of the strongest arms of any outfielder in the early decades of the game. He still ranks among the major league leaders with 61 double plays from the outfield and 283 outfield assists. Thompson also had good speed on the paths and, in 1889. Thompson was born in Danville, Indiana, in 1860 and he was the fifth of eleven children born to Jesse and Rebecca Thompson. He was educated at the Danville Graded School, after reaching adulthood, Thompson became employed as a carpenter in Danville. He and five of his brothers played on a local baseball team known as the Danville Browns. In July 1884, Thompson began his baseball career at age 24, playing for the Evansville, Indiana. A scout for Evansville travelled to Danville and was referred to Big Sam, Thompson was initially reluctant to give up his carpentry career and travel 150 miles to Evansville, but he ultimately agreed to give it a try. Unfortunately, the league folded in early August 1884, after five games. In five games at Evansville, Thompson compiled a.391 batting average, Thompson signed with the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the newly formed Western League in 1885. He compiled a.321 average in 30 games with the Hoosiers and he was approached by a Union Association team and offered more money, but in a show of steadfastness to his word, Thompson refused the offer and remained with Indianapolis at a pay of $100 per month. The Hoosiers were the dominant team in the Western League, compiling an.880 winning percentage, Thompson later told the colorful story of his acquisition by Detroit

7.
Road (sports)
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A road game or away game is a sports game where the specified team is not the host and must travel to another venue. Most professional teams represent cities or towns and amateur sports teams often represent academic institutions, each team has a location where it practices during the season and where it hosts games. When a team is not the host, it must travel to games. Thus, when a team is not hosting a game, the team is described as the team, the visiting team, or the away team. The venue in which the game is played is described as the stadium or the road. The host team is said to be the home team, major sporting events, if not held at a neutral venue, are often over several legs at each teams home ground, so that neither team has an advantage over the other. Occasionally, the team may not have to travel very far at all to a road game. These matches often become local derbies, a few times a year, a road team may even be lucky enough to have the road game played at their own home stadium or arena. This is prevalent in college athletics where many schools will play in regional leagues or groundshare. The related term true road game has seen increasing use in U. S. college sports in the 21st century, while regular-season tournaments and other special events have been part of college sports from their creation, the 21st century has seen a proliferation of such events. These are typically held at sites, with some of them taking place outside the contiguous U. S. or even outside the country entirely. In turn, this has led to the use of true road game to refer to contests played at one home venue. In some association football leagues, particularly in Europe, the teams fans sit in their own section. Depending on the stadium, they will either sit in a designated section or be separated from the home fans by a cordon of police officers. However, in the leagues in England, supporters may be free to mix. When games are played at a site, for instance the FA Cup final in England which is always played at Wembley Stadium. This results in each team occupying one half of the stadium and this is different from other sports, particularly in North America, where very few fans travel to games played away from their home stadium. Home and away fans are not separated at these games

8.
National League
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Both leagues currently have 15 teams. The two league champions of 1903 arranged to compete against each other in the inaugural World Series, after the 1904 champions failed to reach a similar agreement, the two leagues formalized the World Series as an arrangement between the leagues. National League teams have won 48 of the 112 World Series contested from 1903 to 2016, the 2016 National League champions are the Chicago Cubs. By 1875, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was dangerously weak, additionally, Hulbert had a problem—five of his star players were threatened with expulsion from the NAPBBP because Hulbert had signed them to his club using what were considered questionable means. Hulbert had a vested interest in creating his own league. After recruiting St. Louis privately, four western clubs met in Louisville, Kentucky, Boston Red Stockings, the dominant team in the N. A. Hartford Dark Blues from the N. A. Mutual of New York from the N. A. St. Louis Brown Stockings from the N. A, the only strong club from 1875 excluded in 1876 was a second one in Philadelphia, often called the White Stockings or Phillies. The first game in National League history was played on April 22,1876, at Philadelphias Jefferson Street Grounds, 25th & Jefferson, the new leagues authority was tested after the first season. The National League operated with six clubs during 1877 and 1878, over the next several years, various teams joined and left the struggling league. By 1880, six of the eight members had folded. The two remaining original NL franchises, Boston and Chicago, remain in operation today as the Atlanta Braves, in 1883 the New York Gothams and Philadelphia Phillies began National League play. Both teams remain in the NL today, the Phillies in their original city, the NL encountered its first strong rival organization when the American Association began play in 1882. The A. A. played in cities where the NL did not have teams, offered Sunday games and alcoholic beverages in locales where permitted, the National League and the American Association participated in a version of the World Series seven times during their ten-year coexistence. These contests were less organized than the modern Series, lasting as few as three games and as many as fifteen, with two Series ending in disputed ties, the NL won four times and the A. A. only once, in 1886. Starting with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1887, the National League began to raid the American Association for franchises to replace NL teams that folded and this undercut the stability of the A. A. Other new leagues that rose to compete with the National League were the Union Association, the Union Association was established in 1884 and folded after playing only one season, its league champion St. Louis Maroons joining the NL. The NL suffered many defections of star players to the Players League, the Brooklyn, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York franchises of the NL absorbed their Players League counterparts. The labor strife of 1890 hastened the downfall of the American Association, after the 1891 season, the A. A. disbanded and merged with the NL, which became known legally for the next decade as the National League and American Association

9.
1893 in baseball
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The following are the baseball events of the year 1893 throughout the world. National League, Boston Beaneaters June 19 – Baltimore Orioles outfielder Piggy Ward reached base a record 17 times in 17 consecutive plate appearances, the record would be matched 69 years later, when catcher Earl Averill, Jr. tied that mark in 1962. August 16 – Bill Hawke of the Baltimore Orioles pitches a no-hitter against the Washington Senators in a 5–0 win and it is the first no-hitter thrown from the modern-day pitching distance of 606. August 18 – The Boston Beaneaters set a Major League record which stands for the most batters hit by a pitch in an inning. Four batters are hit in the 2nd inning in the game with the Pittsburgh Pirates, november 21 – Ban Johnson is named president, secretary, and treasurer of the recently reorganized Western League. Under Johnsons leadership the WL will prosper, catcher for two teams in 1881. April 18 – Fred Siefke,23, third baseman for the 1890 Brooklyn Gladiators

10.
Al Reach
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Born in London, Al Reach was a regular for the champion Eckford club of Brooklyn in the early 1860s before moving to the Philadelphia Athletics in 1865. When the National Association began, he helped win the first professional baseball pennant in 1871. Upon his retirement from playing in 1875, he helped found the Philadelphia Phillies franchise, Reach served as team president from 1883 to 1899. Later, similar to Al Spalding, Reach formed a sporting goods company, in fact, he sold his company to Spalding in 1889. Reach kept his interest in the Phillies franchise, selling out in 1899 to his longtime partner, Reach died at age 87 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and is interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference Al Reach at Find a Grave

11.
1892 Philadelphia Phillies season
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The 1892 Philadelphia Phillies season was a season in American baseball. The team finished with an record of 87–66, fourth-best in the National League. They finished in place in the first half of the season. The Phillies held spring training in Gainesville, Florida, the teams first spring in Florida, twelve members of the team rode the train 40-hours from Philadelphias Broad Street Station to Gainesville. They played an exhibition against the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, the team lost $469.69 on the trip. Note, Pos = Position, G = Games played, AB = At bats, H = Hits, = Batting average, HR = Home runs, RBI = Runs batted in Note, G = Games played, AB = At bats, H = Hits, Avg